All Too Well
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'She's just missed him, Paula tells her when she shows up at the site of his book signing, Heat Rises clutched to her chest and sealed against her bullet wound. "You've got the guy twisted up enough over you, either get him out of your system or move on already."' An alternative take on 4x01, 'Rise'. Four shot.
1. Chapter 1

She's just missed him, Paula tells her when she shows up at the site of his book signing, _Heat Rises_ clutched to her chest and sealed against her bullet wound. Paula eyes her up and down, pausing in her arrangement of what looks to be leftover books from the signing.

"But if you want my advice? You've got the guy twisted up enough over you, either get him out of your system or move on already. Gina can't handle anymore tragic love crap."

"Gina?" Kate questions, her fingers clenching hard around the novel's spine.

"Calm down, honey," Paula waves her off with a chuckle. "I meant that when it comes to writing, all he's produced this summer are love stories about you. _Granted_ , Gina received those by mistake, but my point? No Nikki Heat, nothing useful, because he's too busy being heartbroken over you. So fix it."

"I can't," she growls, threatening to snap the book she's holding too tightly in half. "He's going to get killed sticking around me-"

"And you're just noticing this now?" Paula scoffs. "Look, I've always known Ricky playing with the police was a bad idea, but who am I to stop him? As long as he fulfills his publicity requirements..." Paula shrugs. "But the past couple years? He's been hung up and head over heels about _you_. I know you've got some dark past, dead mother, and that's why you were shot, yeah? But Richard's not going to leave you alone unless you cut him off. Why? Because he loves you, which I'm sure you _have_ to know by now." Paula narrows her eyes, sending a very intentional flush of shame through Kate's system. "So make a choice and make it now because I'm personally sick of the moping."

Kate purses her lips, but Paula is already stalking off towards the back, not a single care or regret weighing her down. Her words remain like fresh wounds in Kate's already decimated heart.

Because he loves her.

Yeah, she knows. And maybe… maybe she loves him too, but her mother's case just takes up so much room inside of her and loving her - it's no easy feat. She would ruin him, ruin them both, get him killed.

Everyone around her tends to die and god, if she lost him too? The mere idea of it makes her stomach twist into irrevocable knots, gives her nightmares every other evening when she does manage to gain a few hours of rest.

Kate exits the bookstore with his novel still held to her chest. Her courage from earlier, her desire to talk to him, is waning, but after three months, if anything, he's owed an explanation. She sighs and finally withdraws the book from her sternum, stares down at his name gleaming on the glossy cover and strokes her thumb over the raised letters.

He deserves more from her.

She starts up the street towards his loft, only a few blocks from here, thinking only of even breathing and sure steps on the concrete. Her bullet wound still pounds out a steady rhythm of pain through her sternum, the scarring tissue along her side slicing deep with every stride. But she doesn't stop walking, not until she's stepping into his lobby and riding the elevator to his floor.

She knocks on his door before she can talk herself out of it.

It takes a moment, nothing but silence on the other side, and she begins to worry that she missed him again. Maybe he never came home from the signing, maybe he went somewhere else, maybe there's _someone_ else-

The door swings open.

The pleasant smile on his face falls away.

"Beckett."

Shards of her heart catch in her throat. His eyes are cold, his jaw like stone, but his gaze flicks to the book in her arm.

"I went to the signing," she gets out, swallowing hard. "Paula said I'd just missed you, so I… I came here."

The hard set of his features doesn't soften. "What do you want?"

"You." His eyes flare subtly and her chest flutters. "I want to talk to you."

"I waited three months to talk to you. You never called," he reminds her, the anger alive in his gaze, but the hurt twitches along the frown lines of his mouth.

"I know," she sighs, dropping her gaze to the plaid shirt hugging his upper body. It's too hard to look him in the eye, much easier to study the way the fabric fits perfectly to his chest. "And you have every right to be angry-"

"You're damn right I'm angry," he snaps, but it's controlled, like a parent lecturing a child. "I watched you die in that ambulance, did you know that? You know what that's like? Watching the life drain out of someone you… someone you care about."

She almost wishes he would have spoken the truth again, given her a reason to address it.

"I told you, I needed some time," she murmurs, but Castle shakes his head.

"You said a few days."

"Well, I needed more."

"Well, you should have said that," he tosses back, prepared to close the door on her, but she catches it with her hand.

"Castle, look, I couldn't - I couldn't call you," she admits, lowering her hand from the door. He doesn't try to draw it closed, but the risk isn't gone. "Not without dragging myself into everything I was just trying to get some space from. I needed some time to just work through it all."

"Including what happened after the freezer?"

She sighs, but her heart is seizing, words failing.

"Or did you conveniently forget that too?"

Her eyes flash up to him, grief and despair welling up in her stomach. "Rick-"

"Look, maybe you aren't the only one who needs some time here," he murmurs, scraping a hand through his already disheveled hair.

"Castle," she whispers, biting her lip, wanting to cry. How did they ever get to this point? Standing on opposite sides of a door with his eyes so carved out and heartbroken over her? "I - how much time?"

He shakes his head and reaches forward, setting her heart to flutter as he sweeps a strand of hair behind her ear. But the graze of his fingers is fleeting, regretful.

"I'll call you."

The words, an echo of her own, sting like a slap. But all she can do is nod as his hand falls away and he retreats back into the loft, easing the door shut when she doesn't try to fight him.

She clings to the hope, though, that his words can be trusted where hers never could.

* * *

Castle rummages through every drawer he owns, tearing apart his closet and even searching his office. But he's spent the entire morning looking and it's not here.

Alexis wants him to meet her for dinner at their favorite spot later and he can't find the scarf she gave him years ago. Striped shades of blue and thick enough to keep him warm if need be, it was the first real present she ever bought him with her own money and he's fallen into the habit of wearing it when they go out together during the fall and winter months.

Rick curses and plops down on the edge of his bed. He doesn't have time for this. Dinner is just a few hours away, he's looked everywhere, and the only other place he can think of it being is...

Shit.

He glances to his phone, sitting lonely and abandoned on the edge of his office desk. He could call her.

But it's been so long since he's called her. Since she promised to call him. And he just told her less than a week ago, a mere matter of days, that he needed more time.

Calling her isn't just a terrifying idea, it's a pathetic one.

But he needs his damn scarf back. Anything else, he would let go, but not that sentimental gift from his daughter. Castle scrapes a hand through his hair. Facing the woman he used to love in person is even worse than calling her, hardly appealing, especially when he doesn't know if he should be referring to his love for her in a past tense.

Rick takes a deep breath and rises from the bed. He's already dressed, just has to grab his coat, forgoing a glance in the mirror. He doesn't need to see the lines he's noticed carving into his skin or the smears of darkness beneath his eyes.

It's only been a few months, three months to be exact, but she still has him just like she probably has his old scarf.


	2. Chapter 2

Kate curls into the corner of the couch, wrapped in one of his old shirts like the coward she is. Stealing his clothes, his heart, but never giving anything in return. But it helps in his absence, helped calm her down at the cabin when she was immersed in panic attacks all night. Shrugging on the shirt she stole from his closet all those months ago, burying her nose in the collar like she could still catch his scent in the fabric, helped.

It helps now as she sits alone in her apartment after her fourth day back at work, after dealing with 'Iron Gates' and the boys and the tremors that make her hands shake every time she holds a gun.

She lays her head to the arm of the sofa, closes her eyes. If he would have been there with her-

The knock on her door is sharp, startling, and her head jerks up at the noise. There's only one person it could be... well, not true. It could be the sniper still out there trying to kill her, but she doubts he would have the courtesy to knock.

But Castle said he needed time and while that may not match the same three month timeline she had, she assumed it would take more than a few days for him to come to terms with his feelings, how she crushed them.

She rises curiously from the couch, popping her toes on the hardwood before padding across the expanse of her apartment to reach the front door. Part of her doesn't want to look through the peephole, doesn't want the disappointment of seeing it's not him. To hell with it - she closes her fingers around the handle and pulls.

Her heart manages to rejoice and clench painfully at the same time.

He looks startled by the abrupt swing of the door, but the expression slips from his face, subdued behind a mask of indifference.

"Beckett," he greets, her surname like an insult. After the freezer, after she just couldn't find a way to get warm without him, it was only _Kate_. She almost forgot what it sounds like for him to refer to her as anything else.

"Rick," she says in contrast, his name simultaneously like a prayer and a curse on her lips.

Castle's eyes flash to hers, a flare of a blue flame flickering, before they fall to her chest. His brow furrows.

Oh no-

"Is that my shirt?"

Kate pointlessly follows his gaze, down to the worn plaid flannel draped over her shoulders, and swallows hard. How can she play this off without looking as pathetic as she feels?

"I didn't even realize-"

"No, it's good, actually. Now I know for sure that you must have my scarf," he chuckles, but there's no warmth or affection to the sound. If he would have caught her wearing his clothes before - before the shooting, before the summer - he would have been over the moon, teasing her while preening with delight. Now he just looks bitter and amused.

"What scarf?" she mutters, suddenly self-conscious, wishing she had something on beneath his stupid shirt so she could take it off, give it back.

"Striped and blue. Alexis gave it to me years ago, I've worn it a few times throughout our years working together," he explains, rocking back on his heels.

Ice water trickles through her insides, the same way it did on the night she stole both his shirt and his scarf.

She wasn't thinking about the origin of the accessory when she shoved it in the duffle bag kept under his bed from nights spent with him; she was only thinking about how blue and boyish his eyes looked every time he wore it.

No, she wasn't really thinking at all when she left him. But she rarely is when it comes to her mother's case.

All she wanted three months ago was a name. Instead, she got a dead captain and a bullet to her chest.

And a man who was willing to stand with her through it all, who wanted nothing more than to be allowed to stay with her.

"Kate?" She blinks, the tightness in her scar unwinding just slightly at the sound of her first name back in his mouth. But Castle is watching her with a mixture of concern and wariness, still standing stiff and awkward in her doorway. "You okay?"

Her mouth feels dry. She hasn't been okay for over three months now.

"I - maybe I grabbed it by accident," she lies instinctively. It all comes so easy to her now, doesn't it? Lying to him.

 _I love you. I love you, Kate._

 _I don't remember much of anything._

She bites her bottom lip and takes a step back, leaving the door open for him, up to him. "I'll go check, just to be sure."

She's turning away before he can respond. But who is she kidding? He has nothing left to say to her.

* * *

He swears it was panic flaring through her eyes, flashing her skin pale, for just a heartbeat when he asked about the scarf. But maybe he's reading her all wrong. It's been three months since he saw her last and apparently, he was never great at reading her signals to begin with.

Otherwise, maybe he would have seen it coming when she left him for an entire summer without a word, when he thought they were... when he thought nights in his bed and morning in hers for nearly a month straight meant something to her. When he thought it became about more than sex after a case that left them both frozen to the core and eager for warmth.

When he thought she might be falling in love with him.

Rick hesitates in the doorway, knows it's a bad idea to venture any further inside. This is all a bad idea. He should have just texted her about the scarf. He told her he needed time and he did, he _does._ Being here, hurting her with his sharp remarks and carving the frown even deeper into her lips, is proving exactly why.

He's still too wounded for any of this.

But he takes a deep breath, a lungful of air that holds her scent, and enters the apartment. The space is still gorgeous, but feels empty, almost like her. She'll never not be beautiful, he's always known that, but he doesn't think he's ever seen her so hollowed out, so... sad.

Is that his fault? No, _no_ , she was shot and is probably just as torn up over her mother's murder as she was before it led her to the stand in the view of a sniper's scope. Where would she even find room in that recently repaired heart of hers to feel any sorrow over him?

 _Then why is she wearing your shirt?_

That has to mean something, doesn't it? Kate Beckett wouldn't just thoughtlessly throw on his clothes. Not unless she's been missing him.

God, he hates himself for hoping for it. For missing her back.

* * *

She already knows where it is, but she takes her time opening drawers, slamming them closed, making a show of searching.

Eventually, Kate migrates to her closet, leaning against the doorframe with his scarf pressed to her chest, sealed over the still aching scar between her breasts. It hurts worse whenever she thinks about Castle, about the freezer and everything that came after.

It was all her fault. She broke things off with Josh before he left for Haiti, using his latest 'Doctors Without Borders' mission as a catalyst to end something that was over for a long time. Something that never really had the chance to begin, was only ever born from her own misplaced heartache for the man currently standing in her living room.

The man who held her in what she was sure were their final moments - freezing and going numb in the blue cave of the freezer. She wanted to tell him the truth even though the timing was all wrong, but if she's learned anything in this past year, especially where Castle is concerned, it's that there is no right time. There's only the moments they're given and she couldn't let that be their last without trying to get the words out.

But maybe it was for the best that they never made it past her lips. She couldn't have loved him right, the way he deserved, back then. Hell, she still can't now.

When she woke in the ambulance later that night, fingers and toes burning from the cold, it was with urgency embedded in her bones, singing in her blood and pounding in her chest. She woke with courage and need, with the exasperation that came with ignoring the cravings of her heart for so long. It was terrifying and frustrating and riddled with uncertainty, but her curiosity for what something more with Castle could be bloomed into a strong-willed want that refused to leave her and after nearly dying for what had to be the fifth (maybe sixth?) time in two years, she was sick of denying it.

What's the worst that could happen? He could break her heart like he did the summer before, without even knowing, he could leave another scar that may never heal, but she was starting to think that maybe Royce was right. Maybe risking the heart was worth it.

But saving the city came before her heart.

While she was able to see Castle when he woke, disorientated and calling for her, Fallon ensured their time together was brief, possessing an urgency of his own and hurrying them along in the hunt for the bomb. She couldn't afford to think of anything else then; it was easier channeling her mind, her energy, into a case anyway. It wasn't until Castle yanked the wires of that bomb free and and unknowingly became a hero to the nation - top secret or not - that all of her treacherous, ill-timed feelings returned to the surface.

It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that she was convinced they were going to die and the relief bleeding through his eyes had her surging into him - arms around his neck, her gasping breath to his throat.

"I thought it was over," she exhaled in disbelief. "Thought that we were finally-"

"No, no, not over," he quieted her, one of his hands running through the wind blown curls of her hair. "Look at us, Beckett. We're practically superheroes, totally invincible," he teased, pulling back from her with a squeeze to her shoulders and a vibrant smile. But she couldn't manage to wipe the phantom remorse from her mouth. He noticed, brushing his thumbs back and forth along her biceps with enough reassuring force to feel through her coat. "Hey, look, we're okay. Everything's-"

"No," she sighs, shrugging out of his touch with the frustration bubbling up from her guts and seeping through her chest, through his joy. "It's not okay, it's not enough anymore."

She still has no idea how he caught on so quickly in that moment, how his eyes sparked with immediate understanding as he looked at her amidst the chaos and instantly knew what she was referring to.

They were interrupted before Castle could speak, before he could call her out on her truths, but she already knew he would never let them go. And he didn't.

 _You two don't know how lucky you are._

 _Actually, I do._

He waited until after Fallon pulled them aside from their break room celebration, offered his appreciation for their assistance, and they were left standing alone by her desk.

"Hey, I know it's late and that we've had one hell of a day…"

"Hell of a day," she echoed with a twitch of her lips, watching his eyes light up at the hint of her smile.

"But I was thinking..." She held her breath, waiting, but something flickered in his gaze, dulling the desire she thought she so clearly read there.

"Castle?" she called, but she could already feel her heart sinking in her chest.

"I was thinking that maybe I should just head home for the night, get some rest." He glanced down to her desk and began to back away. "See you tomorrow."

She followed his gaze, down to the phone sitting atop her desk, silent but alight with an incoming call from Josh.

 _No_.

Kate left her phone at the desk and strode after Castle, but the elevator doors were already sliding closed.

She wasn't giving up that easy, though. Not this time.

Beckett bid Montgomery and the boys a good night and grabbed her things from her desk. She took a cab from the Twelfth to SoHo, telling the driver to stop at his address. She held her breath on the elevator ride up to his floor and knocked on his door with her lungs constricted and her heart in a vise, her entire body trembling from nerves and chills that just wouldn't leave her.

He opened the door within seconds, curiosity and concern already etched into his features.

"Beckett?"

"I don't want to wait until tomorrow," she breathed, biting her lip as his eyebrows rose. "I'll just spend the entire night cold and anxious."

"Don't you have Josh to keep you warm?" he murmured without missing a beat, not unkind, not thrilled either.

She shook her head. "We broke up a few days ago, right before he left for Haiti. He was just calling because he has a connection in the FBI, heard about the bomb and figured I was involved."

"He knows you well," Castle chuckled grimly, but she only shook her head once more.

"Not really."

Castle eased the door further open. "Want to come in? I'm making stew, there's also tea and hot chocolate. Oh, and a nest of blankets on the couch. This could be fun, actually. Want to watch a movie on the projector screen? It's still up from the other night."

Kate stepped inside with the smile already blooming on her lips.

"Sounds perfect, Castle."

His hand brushed the small of her back before he used it to shut the door. "We'll have you warmed up in no time."

"Are you back to normal already? Warm again, I mean," she asked, taking note of the sweatshirt tugged over the sweater poking out from beneath.

He hesitated. "No, I can't - I still feel it, can't seem to get rid of the ice in my veins. And then there's this."

He lifted his right hand, revealing patches of red skin along his knuckles, the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, a few fingertips.

"Frostbite?" she questioned, stepping closer to inspect the damaged tissue.

"Frostnip," he corrected, wiggling the effected fingers at her, but she caught his wrist before he could draw his hand back. "It actually doesn't hurt too much, just keeps me from writing."

She frowned and skimmed her own fingertips, untouched by the bite of freezing temperatures, over the rough areas, the broken capillaries.

"Did the paramedics on the scene give any special instructions?" she murmured, glancing up to see him watching her.

"Just to stay warm and apply aloe vera every few hours," he shrugged, flexing his fingers within her grasp. "It'll be fine, Kate."

It sent a shiver wholly unrelated to the chill down her spine when he used her first name.

Kate sighed and drew his hand to her lips, skating her mouth over his knuckles and the spider-web of frostbite coating his skin before letting him go, before he could do more than suck in a breath.

But he raised his hand to her neck, draping his palm to the side of her throat, layering his thumb over the heightening beat of her pulse.

"What didn't you want to wait until tomorrow for?" he questioned, narrowing his gaze on her. His eyes were cobalt, hard and questioning, but his touch remained soft, tender and barely there, ready to fall away.

Her blood began to boil, a contrast to the ice still laced through her bones and leaching into her skin.

"To get warm."


	3. Chapter 3

When minutes pass and Kate fails to return, Castle gets restless. He begins to re-explore her apartment, comparing the current space to the one in his memories. Not much has changed.

Her kitchen continues to look untouched and underused, her living room an equal to its past appearances as well, the coffee table littered with case files and an empty mug. He plucks it from the surface, deposits it in the sink out of what was briefly a habit.

He lingers at her bookshelf, noticing the gathering dust and an empty space at the end of the row where his novels reside. He recalls the image of her standing at his doorstep with _Heat Rises_ clutched to her chest.

 _I went to the signing. Paula said I just missed you._

He tries to imagine her standing in line with the rest of his fans, but he can't manage to picture her blending in with the crowds. Had he seen her there, she would have caught his eye, devastated his concentration right away.

What would he have written in her book if she would have made it to his table unnoticed? What would he have said to her in the first place?

 _What right do you have showing up here now when you couldn't even say a word to me for three months?_

 _Where did you go? Were you okay? Does it hurt where the bullet pierced your chest before I could stop it?_ _I'm so sorry I couldn't stop it._

 _I missed you. I loved you. Still love you._

 _Can I just have you back?_

Rick scrapes a hand through his hair and drops his forehead to the bookshelf. The only thing he needs back is his damn scarf.

He takes a deep breath and turns towards the hall that leads to her bedroom.

"Kate?"

* * *

She tenses at the call of her name and drops his scarf to the floor. She lost track of time, hiding in her closet, pretending to rummage through boxes in the back of her wardrobe that she otherwise rarely touches throughout the year.

His footsteps echo through her bedroom and her heart stutters. She's being ridiculous; she's never been one to shy away from her problems, always preferring to face them head on. So why is this so different, so difficult? Why is it suddenly so hard to face the person she cares about the most?

Kate hears him check the bathroom before he approaches the closet, maneuvering past a tower of shoeboxes in the doorway to get inside.

"I'm looking," she assures him, digging into a box of ski gear that she won't be using anytime soon. But he's assessing the shoes he just eased past.

"Are these all of your heels?" he asks, peeking into the box balanced on the top and lifting a black stiletto from inside. "Why are you packing these up? You wear them all the time."

Kate swallows hard, but attempts a quirk of her lips for him when he glances her way. "Hurts too much to wear heels right now," she confesses, redirecting her attention to the box in front of her.

He's quiet for a long moment.

"The bullet scar?"

"Incision scar," she corrects softly. "It pulls too much."

He places the shoe back in its box. "Did your doctor say how long it might be until you stop feeling the after effects so strongly?"

"There's no way to know for sure," she shrugs, feeling both scars coming to life in acknowledgement, as if to remind her that they're here to stay. "But it'll be a while. I'm thinking about just getting rid of them," she adds, nodding to the boxes of heels she's collected and adored over the years. "Keep a few favorites and-"

"Don't do that," he murmurs, abandoning the shoes for her. "No use getting rid of something you love when you'll wear them again."

"Not a big fan of the height difference?" she inquires, realizing too late the implication of what she's said. How it doesn't apply anymore.

Kate bites her lip and returns her gaze to the gloves in her hand instead of witnessing whatever affronted look is probably claiming his face.

"I like you in your heels, but-" She lifts her head in time to see him shrug, not looking at her, but his ears are turning red and the corner of his mouth is threatening to quiver. "I'd never mind the height difference."

He never minded before, seemed to enjoy it actually - coming up behind her in the mornings while she was getting ready and kissing the top of her head so easily, cupping her face and drawing her up on her bare toes on quiet nights in her apartment, holding her with her head tucked perfectly beneath his chin that first night in LA when a piece of her heart broke off for Royce. She fit even better in his arms, against his chest, when she was in flats or on her bare feet.

"I was never trying to forget," she says, knowingly ruining the tentative peace that settled over them in the closet. "I never wanted to destroy us, what we had."

"What did we have, Kate?" he questions, his gaze snapping back to her with an intensity that spears through her, makes her scars tighten up again. "Because at this point, it just feels like a fling gone wrong."

"A _fling_?" The anger begins to boil in her stomach. "Castle, if you were a fling, you never would have heard from me again after that first night."

"Well, never heard from you after the first _month_ , so-"

"I came back," she growls, abandoning her fruitless search and stepping towards him in the cramped space of her closet. "I was always coming back. But Montgomery was dead and I had a bullet hole in my chest, excuse me for not being in tip top shape to talk about us."

"You were never in the mood to talk about us," he raises his voice at her, his chest puffing beneath the rich blue fabric of his shirt while he glares at her. "We kissed, that first time to fool the guard, and we never talked about it. We nearly died frozen in each other's arms and _instead_ of talking about it, we just ended up sleeping together, which we also failed to talk about."

" _Just_ sleeping together?" she scoffs, the fire lit and burning through her now. "We slept together and we _kept_ sleeping together. You asked me to stay afterwards and I was there every morning."

"Yeah, but outside of bedrooms, what were we then, Kate? Anytime I brought it up, you would change the subject. And I probably could have accepted that, lived with it a while longer, but when you got shot-" His voice falters, cracks, and he clenches his jaw. "Watching the life drain out of the woman I loved was the worst thing I've ever experienced and I just - I needed you and you were gone. No explanation, no phone call, not even a warning.

"Rick," she whispers, but he's scrubbing a hand over his eyes, refusing to look at her again.

"We were just glorified friends with benefits," he mutters and her heart finally gives in, collapses.

She bends to snag the scarf still hidden at her feet, snatching it up and shoving it into his chest as she strides past.

"Just take it and go," she rasps, cursing the tears stinging in her eyes because she swore she wouldn't cry.

* * *

He stares down at the scarf in his hands, blue and striped and soft with age. He thoughtlessly lifts it to his noses, catches cherries in his throat.

She knew where it was all along, purposefully pretended she couldn't find it.

Damn her.

"Kate."

He turns on his heel, scarf in his fist, and hurries to catch up with her before she can slam her bathroom door shut. But she's not escaping to the easy hideaway of the en suite, she's striding through the living room, straight for her front door.

Oh hell no. She doesn't get to literally run away from him again.

" _Kate_."

He grabs her by the wrist just as she makes it into the foyer, tugging her to a staggering halt. She groans through grit teeth, her spine shuddering, and - oh, oh no, she's in pain. He _hurt_ her.

Rick immediately lets her go. "Shit, I'm sorry. I'm sorry-"

"Castle, you got your scarf. I'm sorry I took it," she grinds out, gingerly wrapping an arm around her midsection, pressing a palm to the spot below her ribs. "You can have your damn shirt back too once I'm able to move my arms. But you said you needed time, I've been giving it to you. What more do you want from me?"

"I don't-" He pauses, searches through the remains of his scattered mind to find an answer, the right response to such a broad question. But he doesn't have to think long, realizes that it isn't so complicated. "I want to know where we would have ended up. What would have happened if you were never shot, if - if you would have stayed."

He watches the elegant line of her throat work through a swallow, her hand curling into a fist against her ribs as she tries to straighten up.

"Was it - was there ever a chance?" he asks, hating how his voice wavers, hating the idea of her just using him with no intention of anything more for crossing his mind. "Was I always just a rebound or-"

She scoffs, her head shaking incredulously. "Castle, you were never a rebound. Do you - god, do you know how big of a sore spot you were in my relationship with Josh?" Her lips twitch ruefully. "I liked him, really liked him, but you… there was always you."

Kate leans her shoulder into the door, wincing at the brace of movement.

"When we nearly died in the freezer, nearly got blown up a few hours later… it all felt a lot clearer to me that we aren't granted a lot of time in life, that it can be over in just a second," she murmurs, biting down on her bottom lip in that maddening habit that ruined him even before he knew what it was like to steal her lip from between her teeth with his own. "I know it sounds hypocritical when I left after getting shot, but that was different. It - it didn't make me want to live, it broke me and I couldn't handle it."

He drifts closer to her without meaning to, always drawn in like a magnet to its partner.

"I couldn't be with you through that, I couldn't be with anyone," she rasps, dropping her temple to the frame of the front door. "The last three months were nothing but pain. Physical therapy and panic attacks every night-" The picture of her alone in her father's cabin, in physical agony and mental anguish, widens the cracks instilled throughout his heart. "I would've hurt you."

"I would have been there," he murmurs, reaching for her again, softer this time. He layers his palm to the harsh juncture between her neck and collarbone, feeling the angry slash of her clavicle beneath the worn plaid of his shirt. "I get it, Kate. Some things you have to go through alone, but I want you to know that you didn't have to."

Her eyes rise to meet his, hazel and searching. "Because you loved me."

His heart stumbles to hear her say it, but he nods, might as well.

"Because I love you."

Some of the aching drains from her gaze.

"Castle, you know I love you back." His heart stops, but she isn't fazed, just blurting the words out casually as if they really are common knowledge. "But every time my mother's case-"

"Wait," he breathes, fisting his fingers in the collar of his shirt at her neck. "You do?"

Her brow furrows before her cheeks start to blush with color and her lip falls victim to her teeth again.

"Sometimes I forget I never said it out loud."

 _Out loud?_

"I do love you," she murmurs, lifting tentative hands to his chest. She always used to do that in their time together, fingertips tracing the structure of his sternum, palms spanning the muscle and bone protecting his heart. How cliché would it be for him to admit how defenseless it all is against her? "Almost said it to you in the freezer before I passed out."

She's going to give him a heart attack with all of this. So much brand new information that he should have known about months ago.

"But in answer to your question," she picks up, trailing her hands up to his throat, ascending to cradle his jaw, thumbs at his cheeks. "I don't know what would have happened if I'd stayed, if I was never shot, if none of that would have ever happened. But it did, and it could again."

"No." He clutches at her hip with one hand. _Hell_ no. He is not letting her get shot again. "It's not happening again."

"I meant with my mother's case," she murmurs, tracing her thumb to the curving frown line bracketing his mouth. "It could come up again and I - I told you from the start that it takes over my life and you've seen that firsthand now. I don't know how to... you can't love me when that happens because I just close myself off, barricade myself behind a wall that's been inside me since she died."

"Kate Beckett, I can love you through anything," he growls, tilting into her, feeling her breath catch as their bodies align for the first time in months. "You just have to let me."

Her hands slip from his face to thread through his hair, her arms collapsing into a fold around his neck. She hugs him hard and crushing, a tight embrace that he's afraid to return. If he hugs her back, he may not let her go, may hurt her with the force of his arms closing in a vise around her.

"This is why," she whispers, burying her nose in his throat. "Every time I end up drowning in her case and drowning everyone else with me and I just couldn't - everyone was gone but I still had you and I was so close to ruining that too. I can't have the kind of relationship I want until I get this done, Castle."

He shakes his head and gives in, snaking his arms around her until he has her gathered up firmly against him.

"It may not be how you want it, but I'm not going anywhere," he murmurs, his words slightly muffled by her hair. "If you want me, whether you think the timing's right or wrong, I've got you and I'm not letting you go again."

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he catches a glance of his watch on his wrist, the time.

"Shit, except for maybe right now," he sighs, loosening his grip with an apologetic smile. "I have a date." She blinks, her arms falling slack around his neck, and he huffs. "With Alexis."

The tension in her spine loosens, but doesn't dissipate. Ah, so she must have guessed how his daughter must feel about her.

"The scarf," she murmurs belatedly, forgoing a glance to the empty hands splayed across her back and looking to the floor at their feet. "That's why you needed it back so badly."

"If it wasn't a gift from my daughter, you could have kept it." He flicks his gaze down to the shirt she's wearing. He shouldn't be surprised that she took it when she left after that last fight. It was the button down she would always slip on in the middle of the night, the one he purposely began to leave draped across the armchair near his bed.

The shirt on her body hasn't been his for a while now.

"You can keep the shirt too."

"I wasn't planning on giving it back," she murmurs, her lips curving into a smirk for him.

He wants to kiss her, always wants to kiss her whether it's in awe or in anger.

His phone chirps again from the pocket of his jeans, a quiet vibration that buzzes loudly against his thigh, through her apartment.

"Go, Castle." Kate brushes her thumb to the line of his mouth, a reverent touch that has the flesh of his lips tingling, yearning for more. "Don't want you to be late, especially because of me."

He stays her hand at his chin, pressing his lips to her fingertips and watching her eyes ripple with want, drenching gold in desire. She may have broken his heart over these past few months, may have still managed to keep the shards of it in the palm of her hand this whole time, but he still has her just as certainly.

He can still undo Kate Beckett in a heartbeat.

She hooks her thumb through his, reels their hands down and away from the dangerous heat of his mouth.

"Rick," she sighs, listing into him, turning her nose into his cheek. "Take the time you need," she whispers, lips rasping along his jaw, searing, branding, all consuming. "Come back to me when it feels right, when you're ready to dive back in with me."

All he can manage is a nod, the time and coherency he needs to respond properly slipping away, but she has no idea how ready he is.

Damn the waiting, damn her walls - he's going to dinner with his daughter and then he's coming back to remind her exactly what she gave up three months ago.


	4. Chapter 4

Kate crawls into bed that night with a smile on her face that has her cheeks on the verge of aching, hiding the spread of her lips against the collar of a shirt that smells like him again. It's been a few hours since he reluctantly left to join his daughter for dinner, staining her cheek with the heat of his breath and the _see you soon_ he exhaled into her skin.

Again, she thought 'soon' would mean days, definitely more than twenty-four hours. But the knock on her door is too distinct for her not to know who has the audacity to show up outside her apartment this late.

She frowns even as her stomach flutters with butterflies she thought died over the summer and slips from the sheets, padding through her apartment to reach the door. A glance through the peephole confirms her suspicions, but a pleasant dose of surprise still filters through her veins before she tugs the door open.

Castle is standing on the other side, dressed in the rich blue button down from earlier, a light peacoat at his shoulders, the scarf hanging loosely from around his neck.

He smiles. "Hey."

"Hey," she greets, quirking her eyebrow when he fails to say anything more. Nerves tangle with the butterfly wings. "Did you forget something from earlier?"

Please tell her she hasn't managed to heft some other sentimental article of clothing.

He blinks, the corners of his mouth curling ever so slightly, sparking light in his gaze.

"Yeah, actually," he nods, stepping forward with purpose, hands rising to cup her face. She doesn't flinch at the cradle of his palms, the cove of his body bowing forward as he tilts his head, kisses her for the first time in over three months.

The relief slips from her lips in the blend of a sigh and a moan, a sound that has him sliding his fingers into her hair. The last time he kissed her, he knew it was over. He had to have known.

She was immersed in her mother's case, ready to fight to the death for justice that was never really in her reach. He told her that they couldn't win this one, that she needed to back off before they killed her too.

 _I just don't want anything to happen to you. I'm your partner, your friend-_

 _Is that what we are?_ She questioned him, just daring him to say more, almost craving for him to confirm it, to say too much and scare her away _. Just friends?_

He glared at her, stony and scowling.

 _I'm the man in your bed every night. We don't have to have a label, Kate, but that should say enough._

But it wasn't enough and they both knew it. It's why he pushed her.

 _You know what? This isn't about your mother's case anymore. This is about you needing a place to hide. Because you've been chasing this thing so long, you're afraid to find out who you are without it._

Her blood boiled, fury that she didn't think he would ever be stupid enough to tap overflowing into her veins.

 _You don't know me, Castle. You think you do, but you don't._

He scoffed at her.

 _Bullshit. I know you crawled inside your mother's murder and didn't come out. I know you hide there, the same way you hid in nowhere relationships with men you don't love. You don't get to do that with me, you aren't allowed to hide from me. I won't let you._

She growled at him, already gathering her things, prepared to storm out of his loft for the last time. He caught her before she could tug her duffel bag from under his bed, dragged her forward with his thick hand around her bicep, yanking her into his chest.

 _You could be happy, Kate. You deserve to be happy._ Something in her chest started to crack, started to spill through her insides, made her wish she could just sink into him, let him make it okay. _But you're afraid._

So afraid.

 _You know what we are, Castle? We are over._

And that's how she left things, shoving out of his grip and shucking her bag over her shoulder, slamming the door behind her.

He didn't see her again for another twenty-four hours, not until he was carrying her kicking and screaming and sobbing out of the hangar while Montgomery met his death. He kissed her for the first time since their fight, the last time for a long time, on the morning of Montgomery's funeral.

"It's going to be okay," he promised her, standing in her bathroom doorway while she adjusted her uniform for the millionth time. Because of course he slept over the night before, staying on her couch until her nightmares called him to her bed, coaxed her body into what was becoming its preferred resting place curled against his.

She closed her eyes and he stepped up beside her, stroked a strand of hair that escaped from beneath her hat back behind her ear.

She wanted so desperately to believe him. But a bullet would shatter all hopes of that.

"Kate." She opened her eyes to him, so close and intimate and staring into her with all the reassurance she could have asked for. "I'll be with you the whole time."

He touched her chin, swept his fingers along her jaw, and she released a shaking breath when he whispered his lips over hers in a fleeting breath of a kiss.

It felt like a goodbye even though he couldn't have known what was coming.

But now, with his hands tangled in her hair and her toes arching to chase his mouth when they part for breath, it feels like a beginning. A better one.

"Stay," she whispers, hooking her fingers in the fabric of his scarf and holding on. "Please stay."

Castle's nose grazes her cheek while his hands unfurl from her hair. One scales her side, the other descending to brush his knuckles between her breasts, where a scar he's never seen but already knows throbs with every beat of her heart. "Not going anywhere."

Kate takes a step backwards. "Good," she murmurs, tugging on his scarf to draw him after her and feeling his grin bloom against her lips, feeling it spread through her system like reassurance that mends some of her broken pieces. "Because I don't plan to let you go again either."

* * *

 _The first time he notices her wearing it, he almost misses it._

 _It's late February, the air is brisk and bites at his cheek with every wisp of the breeze. They're walking down the street side by side to their favorite cafe for brunch, his mind on a giant mug of hot chocolate, but his attention is riveted to the scarf he just realized she's wearing around her neck._

 _"Looks good on you," he murmurs, earning an arch of her brow and nodding to her throat._

 _"Oh," she chuckles, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and shifting closer to him while they wait at the edge of the crosswalk. They've been doing… this, spending time together outside of the precinct, outside of her bedroom, for a handful of weeks now and it's only further convinced him that he's so in love with Kate Beckett. Seeing her with rosy cheeks and a red nose, bundled up in a coat and his favorite scarf that he's only worn occasionally since they first started working together... it has his heart bursting for her. "I forgot to pack a scarf the other night. I hope you don't mind."_

 _"No," he grins, reaching out to adjust the fabric just below her chin, brushing the cold edge of his thumb to her jaw. "My clothes always look better on you anyway."_

 _Kate rolls her eyes at him and withdraws her hand from her pocket, loops her arm through his before she tucks it back in._

 _"To me, your clothes always look best on the floor."_

 _His brow rises to his hairline as she smirks._

 _"Are you sure you're hungry for food or should we head back to the loft?" he questions, more than prepared to turn around and stride back home with her. But Kate tilts into his side, laughter lining her lips._

 _"Food first, Castle. And then..."_

 _"And then?" he murmurs, nudging his nose to her temple._

 _She turns her head, never one for public affection he's learned, always assumed, but the crowd of fellow pedestrians freezing and in wait of the crosswalk signal to turn aren't paying any attention and he only has eyes for her._

 _"And then I'm taking you home," she whispers, her lips brushing his. "And decorating the floor with your clothes."_

* * *

"But you keep my old scarf from that very first week  
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me  
You can't get rid of it, 'cause you remember it all too well"

 _-All Too Well, Taylor Swift_


End file.
